The Zuni Cafe Cookbook

A Compendium of Recipes and Cooking Lessons from San Francisco's Beloved Restaurantby Judy Rodgers

A deserving winner of a 2003 IACP award, this first book from Judy Rodgers presents favorite dishes from her San Francisco restaurant and plenty of insight into how you can recreate the magic in your own kitchen. Some of the recipes are labor-of-love intensive, with the end result—as in her signature dish, Zuni Roast Chicken with Bread Salad—well worth the effort. There are no loose ends, she leaves nothing unsaid or unexplained. This is honest, yet sophisticated food from the heart. With precise instructions and elegant prose, Judy Rogers, Chef and owner of the celebrated Zuni Cafe, delivers a true “cooking book” that should be in every food lover’s home.

This is one of those books with a cover so beautiful you can’t help but pick it up, and when you do, it is surely difficult to put down. The warmth and texture of the cover and interior design gives it a timeless elegance, and compliment the hearty, comfort cooking found inside the, and one imagines, Zuni Cafe. More than a collection of wonderful recipes (which it is) this is a food lover’s book, an essential for those of us who love to spend some time in the kitchen and read about food. Sure to be at home on your top shelf.

“Rodgers, chef-owner of the Zuni Cafe cooks like a dream and writes like one too. Unlike many chefs who style themselves as creative photographs, Rodgers has a deep sense of how as she puts it, the simplest dish can recall a community of ideas and people. Rodger’s cookbook embodies that idea beautifully.”—Publishers Weekly